February 17, 2007

Hit the Remote, A Moment of Silence

To say that our lives are immeasurably enriched by people we don't know is to say what's not obvious but clearly true when we think about it. Everything we eat or use or read was first an idea in someone's mind and that someone than worked hard, alone or with others, to bring it to us.

Robert Adler, a prolific inventor, received more than 180 U.S. patents during a lifetime of dreaming and tinkering. But only one of his creations revolutionized an industry, changed the face of modern life
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As the columnist Ellen Goodman once noted, the remote control had to have been invented by men because there is nothing more male than the concepts "remote" and "control."
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As triumphant and pervasive as his vision was, Adler's mission was incomplete. If only he had invented a way to find the darn thing.